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Saturday, October 15, 2011

BlizzCon Speculation

Sarah and I attended Blizzcons '07 and '08, but haven't attended one since. We have watched it online, just not the gone. What's funny is that now that we don't play WoW, we wish we were attending more than in past years. Next weekend is Blizzcon, so it's well past time to wonder what it going to happen at the show.

It's pretty much a given that Starcraft II: Heart of the Swarm details will come out at the show. They've been teasing silhouettes of units on the official twitter account for a while now. The show would be a really great followup to the reveal that happened a couple months back.

Not as much of a given but definitely my prediction, I think we'll get a Diablo III release date. The game is in beta right now and all of its secrets have been spilled. Furthermore, Blizzard hasn't had any big reveals at foreign events in a while, so if there ever was a time to dramatically do this, it would be now. I don't think we'll be getting any new information about the game. I'm pegging it for a holiday release for this year.

This one is a bit of a wildcard and could definitely not go this way, but I'm sticking with it. I thin we'll hear about a new WoW expansion at Blizzcon. Why?

The last patch for the Cataclysm expansion is currently being tested on the public test realms. No new info could possibly be revealed about it that hasn't already been.

This means that a new expansion shouldn't actually be that far away.

There have been a lot of good things about this past expansion, but staying in old Azeroth hasn't been one of them. People want to explore new lands. Blizzard seems eager to get the players out of here.

A trademark filing for something called "Mists of Pandaria" was filed by Blizzard a while back that includes it as a trademark for game software. It isn't conclusive, but it doesn't take away from my point either. I don't necessarily believe that this will be the title of the expansion.

There's a ton in this schedule that hints at a new expansion announcement. There are several generically labeled 'World of Warcraft' panels that take place before the 'World of Warcraft: 4.3 Raid and Deathwing' panel at 5 pm on the opening day.

Tell you what, if I'm wrong about any of this, I will publish an incredibly embarrassing story. Believe me, it's really embarrassing and, to this day, only one person knows it.